Journalists demand UN probe into why Israel targeted them in Gaza

RAMALLAH (IPS) - As people anxiously wait to see if the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas
will hold, local and international human rights groups are calling for
investigations into Israeli human rights abuses committed during its
eight-day assault on the Gaza Strip, including flagrant attacks on journalists.
“We want an international investigation into what happened in Gaza,”
Abdal Nasser Najjar, chairman of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate
said. “We want to put an end to this [Israeli] policy of killing and
injuring journalists. There is no difference between a journalist:
Israeli, Palestinian, or international. We want to do our jobs only, as
journalists.”
In its most recent assault on the Gaza Strip, which Israel called
Operation Pillar of Defense, 162 Palestinians were killed and more than
1,100 injured. Three Palestinian journalists were killed and more than a
dozen injured in targeted Israeli air strikes.
According to MADA, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media
Freedoms, the Israeli army has killed 18 journalists, including two
foreign journalists, in the past decade.
“They have classified journalists as enemies. They don’t want the
world to know what they’re doing in Gaza, what the crimes of the Israeli
soldiers are. I think they didn’t want the information to go from Gaza
to outside,” Najjar, who is managing editor of the daily newspaper al-Ayam said.
On 20 November, two Palestinian cameramen from al-Aqsa TV
were killed instantly when an Israeli missile hit their car, which was
reportedly marked with the letters “TV” in neon letters. The two
journalists — Hussam Mohammed Salama, 30, and Mahmoud Ali al-Koumi, 29 —
were on their way to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to document the admission of injured Palestinians.
The same day, a third journalist, Mohamed Abu Aisha, director of
al-Quds Educational Radio, was killed when a missile hit his car.

“Deliberate”

Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli attacks “deliberate”
and, in a statement released Wednesday stated that “journalists are
entitled to the same protection as civilians and should not be regarded
as military targets.”
Almost a dozen reporters were also injured when Israeli air strikes
hit buildings housing local and foreign media offices in Gaza City on
three separate occasions. These buildings housed the offices of
al-Arabiya, Agence France Presse, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, and
Russia Today among others.
“We demand the United Nations set up a committee to carry out a full
investigation into these attacks and take action against the Israeli
government. Moreover, the international community must respond
immediately to this heinous act,” Jim Bomelha, the president of the
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), said in a statement.
On 21 November, the Israeli military spokesperson’s office posted the
following message on its official Twitter feed: “Warning to reporters
in Gaza: stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a
terrorist group, will use you as human shields.”
The Israeli government also insinuated that since al-Aqsa TV — one of
the media outlets targeted by the Israeli air strikes — is affiliated
with Hamas, its employees are not real journalists.
“There is the al-Aqsa station, which is a station that is a Hamas
command and control facility. Just as in other totalitarian regimes, the
media is used by the regime for command and control and also for
security purposes. From our point of view, that’s not a legitimate
journalist,” said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev in a heated televised interview on al-Jazeera. “We don’t target journalists. We target Hamas,” Regev said.

“Just a pretext”

According to Issam Younes, director of the Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights,
Israel’s questioning of Palestinian journalistic standards is only a
pretext to justify its destructive attacks on the Gaza Strip.
“Imagine if Hamas said that those commentators on [Israeli news
stations] Channel 2 and Channel 10 are [Israeli intelligence agency] Shabak people; then they are legitimate targets for Hamas to attack? It’s just a pretext,” Younes said.
Movement in and out of the Gaza Strip is almost entirely controlled by Israel; Egypt operates the southern Rafah border crossing. At the start of its latest military offensive, Israel allowed the entry of dozens of international journalists into Gaza.
This was a change from past Israeli policies. During its 2008-09 military operation in Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead,
Israel barred the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, and declared
the Israel-Gaza boundary, including a two-kilometer zone inside
present-day Israel, and large areas inside Gaza as “closed military
zones.”
It also used extreme violence against local journalists who were documenting the three-week Israeli assault from inside Gaza.
Al-Aqsa TV’s Gaza offices were completely destroyed during the
offensive, resulting in a financial loss of approximately six million
dollars, and the offices of the weekly newspaper al-Risala were also damaged.
“There aren’t any red lines anymore,” Younes said. “Everything might
be a target, as long as there is this political cover and as long as
[the Israelis] believe that they are immune, above the law, and can do
whatever they want without being investigated.”All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2012). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.